In times when the competition in the eCommerce industry is fierce, it can become difficult to get your business noticed and attract potential customers. When a customer searches for something that your business offers, remember that your website won’t be the only one the search results show. The customer will have plenty of options, and to get the customer to notice you, you need a strong digital marketing strategy.

Now, when we talk about digital marketing, marketers have got to two options; SEO and PPC. Both these strategies are quite efficient in bringing your business higher up in the search results and boosting your business. The question that most marketers ask is – which of the two strategies should they opt for?

If you’re a business in Australia and are looking for ways to get your business noticed and don’t know whether to opt for SEO or PPC, you’ve come to the right place.

Both SEO and PPC have advantages and disadvantages. Read this blog to know which is the right digital marketing strategy for your business.

SEO vs. PPC – How are the Two Different?

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the practice of optimising your website to rank higher up in the search engine results pages. It’s an organic way of increasing traffic to your website. SEO involves optimising the website’s content to include high-traffic keywords, improving your website structure and load time, and making your website search-engine and user-friendly. The goal of SEO is to improve a website’s visibility organically. The results are gradual but organic.

On the other hand, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is a paid form of online advertising that instantly boosts businesses. In PPC advertising, the marketer pays every time a user clicks on the ad. Advertisers place bids on high-traffic keywords. When a user searches for these keywords, their ad appears on top of the search results. In PPC marketing, your ad starts to show on the search engine as soon as you start your campaign.

Pros and Cons of SEO

SEO is a very efficient digital marketing strategy that delivers organic and lasting results if done right. It isn’t as simple as it looks. SEO is very technical, but when done right, it’s worthwhile.

As much as SEO is a great option, there are some downsides to it too.

Let’s look at the pros and cons of SEO so that you can decide better if SEO is a good choice for your business.

Pros

Long-Term Results

One of the biggest benefits of choosing SEO for your business is that it provides long-term results. Although setting up an SEO campaign requires a lot of time and the results are much slower, it drives traffic to your website, boosts your rankings, and helps you build a solid reputation for your business, enabling you to stand out among your competitors.

Cheaper

SEO is cheaper than PPC. Although you need to invest more time and resources in SEO, it’s cost-effective in the long run. Once you’ve optimised your website with high-quality content and started to receive traffic, you’ll see that you no longer have to continue doing anything. Your website will appear organically on the first page of the search engine results page, and the users will visit your website without any further advertisements.

User-Friendly

SEO is an inbound marketing technique. It’s not intrusive or interruptive. The users aren’t bombarded with ads. Your website appears in the search results when the user searches for specific keywords. This appeals to the customers more than ads. SEO is less aggressive and extremely user-friendly.

Cons

Requires Continuous Monitoring

Google continuously updates its algorithms which can affect your website’s ranking on the search engine results pages. For this reason, your SEO strategy needs continuous monitoring and refinement to ensure you don’t lose your spot on the search engine results page.

Results are Slow

You won’t get overnight results with SEO. It’s an organic digital marketing strategy, and you’ll see results gradually. SEO isn’t the right choice if you’re looking for a digital marketing strategy that would give your business a quick boost.

Requires Expertise

SEO is highly technical and requires a certain level of expertise. If you aren’t an expert in SEO, you’ll have to hire someone who is, which is an additional resource. You may also need to hire SEO services Canberra to optimise your website for better visibility among the Australian audience.

Not Definitive

Optimising the keywords and website structure aren’t the only factors that influence your website’s ranking on the search engine results page. SEO isn’t definitive, and you need to work on several other factors to improve your website’s ranking.

Pros and Cons of PPC

PPC is also a digital marketing strategy that boosts traffic to your website, but it works differently than SEO. Just like SEO, there are some plus points and some downsides of PPC. Understanding the pros and cons of PPC will help you understand what exactly investing in PPC would mean for your business.

Pros

Quick Results

You don’t have to wait for several weeks for results to show during a PPC campaign. You’ll start getting results as soon as your campaign goes live.

Excellent Targeting

PPC offers excellent targeting options, which means you can target specific audience and ensure that your website gets only the relevant traffic. For example, if you’re based in Canberra, Australia, traffic from the U.S. wouldn’t count. With PPC, you can ensure that most of the visitors on your website are relevant to your business (demographics, gender, age, interests, etc.)

Measurable Progress

The best thing about PPC is that you can measure the progress of your campaign from the start till the end. You’ll know how much and where you are spending your budget, how your business’s performance is impacted, and what the ROI is. This allows you to tailor your campaign to deliver even better results.

Cons

High Cost

In PPC, you pay every time a user clicks on your ad. This means the more traffic you get to your website, the more money will be spent. You may invest your marketing budget on the wrong keywords, only to realise later that you need to invest in other keywords.

Short-Terms Results

You’ll stop getting traffic to your website as soon as your campaign ends. PPC delivers quick but short-term results.

Which is the Right Choice?

Whether SEO or PPC is right for your business entirely depends on your goals. If your goal is to get instant results and boost, you should opt for PPC, but if you’re looking into building a reputation and generating organic traffic for sustainable results, you should opt for SEO.

The best way is to combine both SEO and PPC. Since they both boost traffic to your website and help generate leads, although in different ways, combining the two digital marketing strategies may have a synergistic effect on your business performance.

If you want assistance in creating digital marketing strategies, contact our digital marketing experts at TocToc. We are experts in search engine optimisation services and PPC in the Australian market, and we can help you choose what’s best for you.